I bought my house fours years ago yesterday. Happy housiversary, House. How about we celebrate by buying you four 6 week-old chickens? No? Too late my green friend! They are here. Actually, they arrived on Thursday morning, and I spent my first 10 minutes with them in an Uber, with a box containing four live pullets sitting on my lap. Pecking chicks. Hungry chicks. Thirsty too. Ginger, Halibut, Lee, and May.

Day 1: I put them in the run under the coop because it was daylight. In two minutes, they’d figured out how to drink from the watering bucket “nipples” (I didn’t name them that, really). Within 5 they were eating down the food (started with 2 scoops). So I left them to it and drove to work. When I got home at dusk they were peeping and hunkering down…in the run. A day in the run hadn’t led them to explore the coop. So I climbed in and handed them up into the coop, and followed them with their water and food.

Day 2: Come morning, they sat in the doorway, looking down and unable to figure how to walk down the ramp to the run. Two eventually did, while I helped the other two down, and left them for the day with food and water. By dusk of day 2, they’d eaten most of their food, so I added a scoop. Or tried to. They were peeping and waiting by the door for me to…do something. Which was to help them up into the coop again. What is the chicken learning curve?